Juggling Mike

People usually make new resolutions at the start of a new year, but I have never felt motivated to join in with the crowd. I usually need the warmth of the Spring air to motivate myself. This year, my primary goal is to get back in shape. I plan on achieving this through a couple of activities, all of which are smaller goals.

How I plan on getting back in shape:

1) Go rock climbing
I rock climbed a long time ago back in high school. I greatly enjoyed it, but I never continued the sport. A couple of weeks ago, I tried out trapezing at the Trapezium, which is located in a huge rock climbing gym. After feeling muscles I had long forgotten, I felt like scaling those walls to work on my strength. Fast forward two weeks, and Dave, Lorraine, Dharti and I were taking a course on how to rock climb. It was an easy course, but a necessary refresher. Since then, Dharti and I have bought our equipment, and we plan on going at least once a week. We are currently going to Allez-Up, so if any of you are interested, you can join us there.

This activity will give me a body workout, and so far, I am feeling it more in my back, forearms, and fingers. It is great fun.

2) Go biking
I’ve had my bike for a couple of years now, but besides going to work with it, it spent most of its time in my storage room. Last autumn, I discovered the bike paths that lead into Montreal, and I was hooked. I don’t go very fast, but I love cruising down the paths and absorbing the scenery. Last year, I did 55km in one ride, and it went really well. My plan is to wake up early on Saturday or Sunday and go do 25-30km. I would like to be home before the heat of the noon sun.

This is a sort of cardio, although I am not going fast enough to have a real cardio workout.

3) Learn to unicycle!!!
Three exclamation marks, since I am well overdue! Dharti said she would help me out with this obstacle, so hopefully, I will have mastered it by the end of summer. If I ever get good enough, I’ll look into getting a 29″, or maybe a Coker and switch my biking routine with a unicycling routine.

4) Use my stilts
I bought some jumping stilts last year, but I never had a real chance at using them. Like the unicycle, I want to be able to properly use them and incorporate it into my usual routine. Some people go running with them, but I don’t think I would want to go very far.

5) Spend more time outdoors
This part is very important. I hope to be able to play Frisbee, or street hockey, or ultimate soccer, or touch/flag football, or any other outside sports with people. I’m just hoping we have a nicer summer than last year, with lots of sunny days.

So those are my goals so far. Naturally, I will have more as time progresses, but I want to have a more active summer. I spent most of my time in Winter in front of a computer, and I need to get some more fresh air, and tan my pale skin. I`ll update when I have reached any milestones.

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Montreal is host to many film festivals each year. While nothing surpasses the Fantasia Film Festival every summer, there are always movies worth seeing at the other festivals. Last year, I checked out the Festival Nouveau Cinema. While I didn’t see much, one movie stuck out over the others. That movie was Sita Sings the Blues.

It is a beautiful animation by Nina Paley that has several unique characterisitics. First of all, it blends several different animation styles, from the clean Flash (animation) look, old moving paintings, shadow puppets, and Squigglevision. Each graphic style is used for a different type of segment which helps push the story along. The shadow puppets are the narrators of the story, which is told in the old painting style. The story draws two parallels between the author’s own life and the story of Sita and Rama, a classic Indian tale. Another fascinating aspect of this movie is how Nina Paley used old recordings by Annete Hanshaw to describe Sita’s love. Annete Hanshaw was a popular jazz singer in the 20s. The music is definitely a style that has not been aired on the radios for a while, and it adds to the uniqueness of the entire film. Every time her songs are used, the clean look of Flash animation is used, which differentiates it from the rest of the movie. The squiggly animation is applied whenever Nina talks about her own personal life, which properly separates it from the rest of the film, while still keeping in line with the story of Sita and Rama.

It is hard to properly describe Sita Sings the Blues without showing you anything. Luckily for you, it has been released for free over the internets. There are various viewing options, from streaming video to a 200gb uncompressed 1080p version. I have downloaded the 3gb 720p H.264 version and the quality is superb. In fact, it is playing on my second monitor as I am writing this. For those wary of the huge file sizes, Youtube has a nice HD version available for streaming. I have embedded it below, but to view it in HD, you will probably have to click on it to view it on the original page. It has also been separated into 10 segments below to allow it to stream faster.

If you watch it, please let others know what you think of it. I think it is an excellent movie and deserves to be viewed by as many people as possible. If you appreciate animation as an art form, love old jazz tunes, or wish to hear about an Indian tale, this is the movie for you!

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I found out a month or so ago that there was a place in Montreal which taught you how to do the flying trapeze. A friend of mine had done it before and wanting to try it again, she organized a group of 10 people to experience it with her. Among the group was my girlfriend and Dave. It was the first time for all three of us. Dave owns a wonderful camera/camcorder hybrid so we got to film our successes and failures. I would love to show my girlfriend’s video, but she doesn’t want others to see it. She messed up at the beginning, but she performed admirably for the last (and most important) swings. We had two hours and we squeezed in 60 jumps, so 6 each, and roughly one every 2 minutes. The jumps taught us progressively with the final lesson being a proper catch by another instructor.

Notes about the course:
Swing 1: An introduction to the trapeze and to break our fears. We simply swung down, hooked our feet, looked downwards, removed our feet, and then jumped off. It was simple to do, but it was hard to implement since we all had that initial fear of falling off. I look like doofus in the this swing in the video.

Swing 2, 3, 4: This was the same as the first swing except we had to focus on really bringing our arms and head backwards, and we would end in a backflip. On swing 4, my hand touched a support line and it screwed me all up. What you don’t see in the video (because of the angle) was that my trapeze was going crooked, so I used my hands to make it straight again. Of course, on video, I just look like I screwed up again!

Swing 5, 6: This time, we would swing, hook our feet, and then grab another instructor trapezing at the other end. This was why we had to look backwards all the time. If we didn’t look back enough, we wouldn’t be in position to be caught by the other person. The final two swings were really exhilirating since you got to really coordinate and feel part of an act.

Everybody agreed that it was a lot of fun and we all plan on going again. Apparently, they continuously teach you more advanced tricks, so we can get better and better as we visit them. If I ever revisit, I will most likely have a camcorder again and I will share my experiences once more.

EDIT: Dave added his video as well. Go check it out!

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